Which Socket 775 SLi Motherboard?

[Woodchuck2000]

I'm currently trying to choose between the Asus P5ND2-SLi and the P5N32-SLi motherboards.

The main difference is, of course, the 16x-16x configuration of the P5N32. Other than that though, I can't find anything to justify the double price of the P5N32.

Does anyone have any experience of either of these boards or can anyone suggest a different board that I should consider?

I'm planning to stick a Pentium D 805 and overclock it to something in the 3.3Ghz region (to give a nice 667Mhz FSB to tie in with the frequency of the DDR2 I own)... It also needs to support SLi - I'm planning to pick up another 7800GT on eBay a few months down the line.

Thanks!

[FatalSaviour]

The P5N32-SLi has an 8-phase power design. This may help give you a better overclock than the P5ND2-SLi would. However, it's not going to give you double the performance for double the price. There are other small differences (the P5N32-SLi) has eSATA, but this will all come down to whether you'll use it or not, and you should be able to pick up an adaptor anyway.

I'm not sure whether you're using the stock cooler on your 7800GT, but if not, and you're using a dual-slot cooler, you may want to think about whether you'll be using more than 1 PCI card (i.e an X-Fi, PhysX, TV Capture card etc). The P5N32-SLi will only give you 1 PCI slot free with dual-slot gfx coolers, whereas you should be able to squeeze two out of the P5ND2-SLi.